I like to listen to podcasts while I run. Sadly, I don’t run as much as I should. I’ve also taken to listening to them while I do the dishes (Susan cooks, I do the dishes). One day several years ago I decided to toss in “Mormon” to the iTunes search engine and see what popped up. Mormon Stories was one of the big hits, and I saw there was an interview with Richard Bushman, a man I greatly admire for both his scholarship and his faith.
I kept listening to the podcast over the past few years and have really enjoyed the ones I’ve listened to. Of particular note were the ones with Grant and Heather Hardy (Grant wrote “Understanding the Book of Mormon,” which, in my opinion, is one of the best analyses of the Book of Mormon ever), and with Lisa Butterworth, the founder of Feminist Mormon Housewives. But there are interviews with scholars, therapists, leaders, ex-Mormons, apologists, etc. etc. etc. John Dehlin, the man behind the podcast, is certainly a person who focuses much on Mormons of all stripes, and I appreciate that. It’s nice to hear different stories and opinions. Filter bubbles are bad, as I’ve blogged about before.
John’s original project is to create a space where Mormons of all stripes can come together to talk about things, whatever they want to. The genesis of his idea he sums up in this youtube video, much of which I agree with, some of which I do not. I’m linking it here, but be warned, it’s like an hour long. Might be worth the look though. I found it worthwhile.
Of late the project has actually turned into local communities. Through facebook John and Anne Peffer, another person who helps with the logistics and things of the podcast, have organized regional Mormon Stories groups. Their called “support communities,” which gave me pause. What is this? AA? Also of late the podcast begins with a suggestion to “friend” John on facebook, so you can find other common friends who are “Mormons like you.” That was perhaps my second clue that the purpose of the podcast was changing. However, I joined the local group of Mormon Stories listeners here in DC and generally found them to be a great group of people that I disagree with on various religious issues. As if that’s a problem for me. (Mormon studying theology at Catholic U here, hello!)
When the chance came to organize a local conference for others who listen to the conference, I felt inclined to help out, so became part of the organizing committee. Fun group of people. Very dedicated, and as scarily organized as any group in the church I’ve seen before. (The term "scarily organized" comes from one of Susan's coworkers, who used it to describe Mormons in general.) Here's the committee, along with Greg Prince (the host), John, and Anne.
So, over the weekend of October 14-16, we held our conference. It was a wonderful time. I always love listening to Greg, one of our high councilmen. He wrote David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism and gives, quite frankly, the most consistently awesome, spiritual, and mind-blowing high council talks I’ve ever encountered. His talk about the history of Mormon thought was very insightful.
We had three TED-style talks, one from John Dehlin, one from Steve Kovalenko, who has found peace by leaving the church, and one from a friend of mine, Chelsea Shields Strayer, who has found peace by staying in the church. Chelsea’s participation was originally my idea and I’m glad she came. It was fitting at least for me personally because Chelsea and I were in the same ward growing up together and even took the bioethics class at BYU where we were in the same study group. That bioethics class was one of the foundational classes in my personal relationship with the institutional church, because it was really the first time where I saw, in writing, up on the overhead projector, how the church’s policies on some things (like birth control) have evolved over time without direct revelation on them (like polygamy or the priesthood ban). So seeing her again was a delight for me personally, but not just because she’s just so friggin’ intelligent you can’t help but have your mind blown just by talking with her.
These conferences always seem to include what have been come to be known as a “testimony” meeting. That’s not quite the best term for it, but “open mike time” doesn’t capture it exactly either. But it’s just a time for the people who came to our conference to stand and tell their own stories. I myself stood up and talked for a bit. If you go listen to the podcast recording of that session, I start at about 20 minutes in and talk for 3 or 4 minutes. (The conference is linked later in this blog entry.) Sorry about the scratchy voice; I was sick. Really, these sessions are the culmination of John’s vision about creating spaces for Mormons of all stripes to come together. We even had people from the Netherlands and Brazil who came to DC for our conference!
But for me, the best part of the conference was talking to one of the other participants. This man, John (not Dehlin) was one of the people who got married, even though both he and his wife knew he was gay, and lived with that for many years before the dissonance became too much. He then left/was kicked out of the church, and now lives here in the DC area. He called himself an atheist, gay, excommunicated Mormon. Yet he told me a story of how he was once sitting at temple square after all of these things had happened (he said “if you’re going to be an apostate, you probably shouldn’t hang out on temple square,” ha) and how a kind old gentleman had walked up and asked to sit next to him. John said that was okay, and the two of them struck up a conversation. At some point this old man said to John something to the effect of “the angels of heaven rejoice over your faith and testimony.” Now, it’s just bizzare that anybody would say that to an excommunicated, gay, atheist former Mormon. But John shared this story with a quiver in his lip when he spoke of it as a blessing from this old man who he had never before met, and who he has never seen since. Later, in sharing this experience with his Mom, she said that it must have been one of the three Nephites. And again, as he spoke of this, he did so with great emotion and with a tear in his eye. He knew that he was being completely contradictory when he said that he was an atheist, gay, excommunicated Mormon, but one who believed in the three Nephites, because he believed that he had met one of them.
The apostle Paul speaks of charity, the love of God, and that it “seeketh not her own.” In many ways, the people who gravitate towards Mormon Stories conferences are not “my own.” In general I find their approach to Mormonism an inadequate explanation for Joseph Smith and the church he founded and the scriptures he produced (warts and all, which I am aware of). I’m also deeply concerned about their appropriation of the term “Mormon,” which I don't think should be used culturally or genetically. It’s not a gene, and it’s not a local charity organization. It’s a religion. I’ve talked about this before, in response to an earlier draft of the shared values statement.
So why did I go? Why did I hang out with a bunch of (largely) disaffected Mormons with whom I disagree with a lot for an entire weekend?
I think my experience was best summed up in my encounter with John the gay atheist excommunicated Mormon who believes he met one of the three Nephites. Even though his personal beliefs seem to completely logically contradict each other (can you be atheist and believe in the three Nephites?), yet in the moment he told me his story, we shared something. And I feel I was the better for him having taken the time to share part of his life that meant a lot to me. I hope he’s the better for having talked with me, but I’m pretty sure I came out on top of that exchange. And in that moment I think we both had charity for one another.
I think I’ll keep hanging out with all these people. Because they’re awesome. And I want to be awesome too.
You can listen to the conference at the following links:
Greg Prince’s keynote talk, with a Q&A session at the end.
The 3 TED-style talks.
The “testimony” meeting. (I’m at about 20 minutes in, talking about “what I’m doing here.” This blog entry is a much longer, more detailed version of my comments there.)
Bonus: Picture of me and John Dehlin on a bench talking about cool stuff.
John’s a great guy, and I appreciate what he’s trying to do. Hopefully my being part of the organizing committee was a bit of my trying to leave the ninety-nine sheep and find the one (not that anybody is my project), and to support what John is doing. John’s trying to find a place for everybody to feel comfortable. I can get behind that. So I did.
And I’m the better for it.
9 comments:
On your whole Mormon-identity thing I don't think I gave you an adequate response earlier, so here it is:
1) I'm not opposed to them using the term Mormon (or tomato, cup, or whatever for that matter) to describe themselves, due to the philosophy-of-language issues we talked about before. I think the important point is what do their activities mean for the body of the church.
2) I do think that it is wise to restrict certain activities to the TBMs. Temple worship, for example, is too important for us believers who take it on its own terms (even if some of us might see it as having a masonic framework) to reduce it to a cultural artifact, which is why I think it's good that there are belief-centered questions in the temple interview.
3) The TBMs are really the ones that get to decide where the church is going and to struggle along with it. I suppose that the non-TBMs can have an advise and consent role (a la Sterling McMurrin), but their simple association with the church in the past doesn't give it some right to directly guide its future; because nobody's going to trek from Nebraska to Utah based on cultural affiliation.
4) It's disingenuous to pretend like there isn't a huge paradigmatic difference between people for whom the church's doctrine provides an essential component of their metaphysics and cosmology, and those for whom it is cultural, and it bothers me when the latter tries to pretend like it's a nitpicky distinction.
5) If it is cultural they should stop magnifying the importance of this socio-cultural corner of the world. There are thousands of cultures worth studying of which ours is one; I don't quite understand their fixation on ours when there is so much more exciting out there.
6) Finally, if I left the church and wanted to nurture some kind of connection with my ancestral cultures, I think a human-sacrificing Celts or raiding Vikings Stories podcast would be cooler.
Stephen,
I like your comment. One thought that you may already have considered:
For Mormon stories followers (and I'm just learning about them myself), Mormonism is not just one culture among many that they may choose to study. Mormonism is the soil from which they themselves grew. They're still embedded in it. It may well be said of them that they love the church more than they believe it. For that reason, they feel a sense of community with other Mormon Stories followers and enjoy meeting people who experience the same challenges.
For them, reconciling their love of Mormonism with their disbelief in Mormonism is a way of synthesizing within themselves their own capacities for rational and spiritual existence.
Why is this important? For so long, they experience the church in a bifurcated way, having been unable to synthesize their intellect and their faith, primarily because their faith made unreasonable demands on their rational existence. They need time, not necessarily to define or shape the course of Mormonism, but time to make sense of their own capacities of mind and heart, reason and faith, skepticism and belief, etc. If doing that can help the church in some way, I'm sure they would agree that this would be an ancillary benefit and not the primary purpose of their meetings.
In response to you, Stephen:
1. I disagree. When people say "Mormon," they're trying to express something to me. I'd like to know a) what they mean, and b) if that's a generally accepted definition of the word. You can't just substitute any old word. That makes language as meaningless as saying that anybody can be a Mormon, or a Catholic, or a [insert group distinction here]. The differences matter, and the words are trying, however imperfectly, to explain and categorize those differences.
2. Totally agree that the temple should not become a cultural artifact. There's some serious covenanting going on there, and I really really LIKE that we have a holiness code to make those covenants. (Those who claim that we should just open the temple to everybody are thinking from a far to 21st century North American protestant way of thinking about holiness codes, rituals, and the body of Christ and are ignoring . . . most of religious history's take on such things.)
3. I would be careful saying that someone's association with the church was "simple," because what seems simple to you may not be to them. That being said, I agree that being born to Mormon parents doesn't make you automatically Mormon. And yes, I don't think cultural Mormons would be willing to walk across the continent for that cultural affiliation, even though I would if the prophet said to.
4. Agree, it is not a nitpicky distinction. To go back to point 3, people did not leave their families, travel across the ocean, then walk across the continent to set up shop in a new land in the middle of the desert because of a cultural idea. From the comfort of our living in America in the early 21st century people can claim Mormonism is their "tribe," but really, Mormon is not a genetic identity. Never has been. Probably never will be. It's a religion. It is NOT like being a Jew, which started out as a religion of a particular tribe, but somewhere lost the religion almost entirely and now is almost completely a genetic distinction.
5 and 6. I think you're being unfair, Stephen, and I think that Jonah has correctly figured it out. They fixate on our culture because it's theirs. It's what they were raised in and was a major part of their formation as individuals. They're not studying it as anthropologists; they are heavily invested in the religion, the community, and their place in all of it. Your line about having a Viking Raider Stories Podcast is cute, but nobody in the world today recently decided that being a pure Viking Raider wasn't for them and is now trying to figure out where they fit in the world. But that's sure happened to plenty of Mormons.
That being said, if a Viking Raider Stories Podcast ever gets started, you bet your bottom dollar I'm going to subscribe and listen! That would rule!
If the purpose is it to ease the psychological transition involved in a conversion, then that seems like a reasonable, laudable goal.
However, I reiterate point 3. There does seem to be those who are trying to make things more comfortable for those semi-leaving the church by making the church come over to where they are, and that's not really a workable model; whether we're talking about the Eastern Orthodox or Coptic Patriarchs or the Pope, the leadership and core of the church need to actually believe it for it to have any viability. A simple look at membership statistics for liberal versus conservative denominations will bear this out. By extension, as the ones forming the engine for the church, the believers are also the ones that have to wrestle with the problems in the past and doctrine and decide where to go from here, it's not the prerogative of the cultural affiliates.
When they talk about the positive institutions of the church, and how the church can keep those positive aspects while sacrificing the belief component ( admittedly, this is a slight assumption, I'm largely echoing Brodie here), I'm bemused. I can't see a Bishop getting up and announcing that the First Presidency has released a memo saying that the JS didn't really receive the priesthood....but we still need you to get your home teaching done.
In a way, cultural affiliates are utilizing the sparks produced by those who did believe and made sacrifices for it. I'm fine with that on a personal level, it's a public, inexhaustible good so why not, but once they start threatening others' foundation of orthodox belief and sacrifices, then they've started to bite the hand that fed and feeds them and their interest. They have the option of raising their children in the church if they want because there is a believing, hardworking Bishop who comes early to and leaves late on Sunday.
If they want to be a halfway house for people transitioning out of faith, then I suppose is praiseworthy in terms of its own utilitarian purposes, but "it's no proper basis for a system of" religion, and it's definitely not a situation that merits trying to convert somebody to, which I think they do when they invite people to their events without disclosing what they are, only to surround them with people who respond to their beliefs with "really?"
So, in summation; I think that what they are doing is fine and useful as long as they recognize and respect the boundaries and differing missions of the church and what they're trying to do.
All right, I'm going to go eat my son's halloween candy now.
I'm one of those cultural Mormons. I've come to claim that identity after wandering thirty years in the wilderness. For me, it's not a case of coming back to the LDS church, it's coming back to the chapel door. I realized early on that I did not believe that the LDS church was factually "true." I stayed on until I was called on a stake mission and had to teach the LDS church's truth.
I stayed on until my wife insisted that she could not stay married to a gay man (even though I remained faithful to her). I stayed on until I felt so utterly broken and lost that I could not stay. I could not fast another day. I could not pray another prayer. I would never be worthy enough to believe what I knew I could never believe.
So I left for 30 years. I missed the fellowship. I missed the community. I missed my family. The pain was real and affected not only me but the ones I loved, my family, my priesthood quorum, my ward. I never felt so utterly outside when I was inside the LDS church. I had to go.
I'm back at the chapel doors. It's about the most I can muster. The Mormon Stories DC Conference touched my heart deeply. I felt welcome among the Saints once more. It wasn't about belief, doctrine, or testimony. It was about love, community, and some gentle understanding.
This was a Mormon Meeting that I can believe in. I believe there is room in the Mormon tent for me, and for others like me. You can analyze our motives and anthropoligize our behaviors, but we are real people with real roots in the Mormon and the LDS traditions. We also have real needs, and the LDS church needs to address those needs.
Carl,
Could you please specifically describe what you define as the 'institutional church'?
Thanks
That's a good question, anonymous @5:19.
In the context of the class at BYU, it was watching the Church Handbook of Instructions (which they had permission to show us) evolve over time.
Basically, I would say the "institutional church" consists of a) the baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and especially b) the official pronouncements of the leadership of that church, like the Church handbook of instructions.
I loved the conference and the spirit that was present there among Mormons of all types. For me, my identity as a Mormon is NOT cultural but totally religous. As I said in the testimony meeting, I am a Mormon because I see my Heavenly Parents through the distinct theology that the Prophet Joseph Smith taught in Nauvoo. My theolopgical paradigm is the Mormon Paradigm: "As man now is God, once was; as God now is, man may become." Joseph harmonized nature with the Divine. I view the relationship of the word "Mormon" to "LDS" in the same way I view the relationship of the word "christian" to "Catholic." So while I make no claim to being LDS, I am most certainly a Mormon. (My denominational affiliation is Reform Mormon.)
Thank you Carl for defining 'institutional church' for me.
On those two pieces you mention that make up the institutional church, I think I agree with you that the second part (official pronouncements/Church Handbook) is probably lacking some in resources to help people with faith-based crises. Although, if you add to that the words of the prophets/apostles during General Conference, I think some/much of that lack disappears.
Now for the first group that makes up the 'institutional church' (the members) - I think there is a LOT of work that needs to be done here. The scriptures are replete with examples on bearing each other's burdens, but we fall very, very short of living our religion in that respect. I am inclined to believe that this may be almost wholly cultural. I have been part of Wards in different cultures (Note: Arizona white-people culture is WAY different than the east-coast equivalent) that were very supportive in all areas, including faith-based crises.
So the question remains, why is it that many Mormon cultures are failing in this respect? Are we just not as faithful as we proclaim?
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